Ode To Sleep
by Wwrath
Summary: "You know you're probably the first Guardian to set your own ship on fire from the inside, right? I'm pretty sure there should be a medal for being that insane." (Mainly OCs. Tsukino Akira's Fireteam sets off for the Moon on a routine normal mission, but after a vicious crash landing, she learns the hard way that no one is ever prepared for the true depths of the Darkness...)


**Pt. 1/4 - Exile**

 _i wake up fine and dandy, but then by the time i find it handy_

 _to rip my heart apart and start planning my crash landing_

 _i go up, up, up, up, up to the ceiling_

 _then i feel my soul start leaving, like an old man's hair receding_

 _twenty one pilots - ode to sleep_

* * *

A flicker, orange glinting from grey, dizzy thoughts of little. Flicker, crackle, consume.

 _"...ra..."_

Forged again, so he said, but from who, and why should a newborn broken and bent in an ancient place of rust and blood care of a battle for those never to be met, of a Light without definition? Empty of everything but questions.

 _"Damn it all! Get your knife in and I'll..."_

The blind shepherd spoke, the pull of something, not away but toward, and when the sun burst forth and Devils burned screaming, when the great Tower stretched toward the god of enigma, the questions began to matter. The questions and the flame became everything. As they should be, as they have been since, as they will forever remain.

 _"... damned ship is just scrap at this point but at least she's okay... are we... get her home?_

 _"There will be an answer. There always has been."_

 _"I don't know if... or crack your damned jaw plates, sometimes..."_

And as you open your eyes, they fill with a light that is not yours, Munir's, Kreuz's; it is not Light and speaks nothing of home. The first thing you see before the Titan's anxious eyes is the circle in the sky and the familiar glare of Earthlight mixing with the luminous vapors venting eternally from countless cracks, hypnotic clouds of emerald hatred.

"Munir," you mumble, irritated at the weakness in your voice, the ache in every conceivable part of your body, "Would you mind moving? You're blocking my view of Earth." Vision coming into focus, you watch his helmet turn toward Kreuz, who is perched on an outcropping of moonrock, sighting down his rifle into the distance. You cannot help but wonder if the Exo is cautious as always or if he is following through on a spark of intuition. Stranger things by far have happened, many of which you've seen and a few of which you're probably responsible for.

"Annnnd yep, that's our Aki," Munir says, and it's easy to imagine the too-smooth roll of glowing eyes, the faint upward curl of the corner of a mouth. Kreuz chuckles and bits of metal beneath his hood grind and squeal against one another at the edge of hearing.

"Did I say something out of the ordinary?"

"Yes," Kreuz replies, and though you're no longer watching him, instead focused on standing, you don't miss his tone. "I would be concerned to hear you speak otherwise."

Not for the first time, you wonder if, despite the Exo and Awoken with whom you share your scars and your friendship, the only human member of your fireteam might be the least 'human' of you all. Not for the first time, you weigh the importance of the matter and find it insignificant. Personally, you're more concerned that you live in a world of three races and yet the word 'human' remains universal as a synonym for the public's view of the ideal state of mind.

"You know you're probably the first Guardian to set your own ship on fire from the inside, right? I'm _pretty_ sure there should be a medal for being that insane."

Now you're starting to remember what happened, or at least flickers of it: three ships breaking formation under heavy fire from the moon's surface, banking away from a hail of arc bolts and accelerating at full power to push through their targeting range.

You always were a terrible pilot.

"I hardly think that it's insanity to invoke the Light when one's heart is stopped by massive electrical discharge," you reply.

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure most of the damage that poor machine took was from solar flame, so technically _you_ actually knocked that thing out of orbit when you _blew up your own engines_. When we get home -"

"A ruined ship and a living Guardian is preferable to a functional ship with its pilot dead inside the cockpit, in my opinion," Kreuz says over his shoulder. Munir tries to rub his temples in frustration, apparently forgetting that his helmet is still firmly attached.

"Regardless," he continues, "our mission remains the first priori - no, I retract my statement. The mission is now our second priority." A moment passes, and with a crack like stone split by a Titan's fist, a streak of azure arc energy rends the sickly dim, the kickback throwing the Exo's rifle upward.

In the distance, an all too familiar tide of alien curses cuts through the silence.

"Traveler damn them," Munir mutters. "There had better be something worth scavenging after these idiots are too dead to waste more of our time."

"Exile," you spit, and the Titan steps away, auto rifle half-raised in your direction.

"By the Light, I hate it when you do that. There _is_ such a thing as personal space, you know. This place is terrifying even _without_ Warlocks yelling into my damned ear."

"Direct your anger toward our foes," you say, barely noticing the weary shake of his head as you rise above the ridge and drop two heavy slugs from your Regulator into a Vandal perched a few hundred feet away on a rickety platform, the idiotic thing's camouflage fading as wisps of its worthless soul dissipate into the thin atmosphere, a primed wire rifle falling from nerveless claws. Kreuz doesn't so much as twitch toward your kill; he is too good at what he does to make such a mistake. He fires off another bolt of hissing blue light before slinging the sniper rifle over his shoulder and switching to a more versatile weapon.

"I will never understand how a human can do that," he says, and you duck back into cover as Munir splays a hail of suppressive fire across the wastes. You wonder briefly what it is about your usage of simple mathematics to effectively utilize your weapon at longer ranges that the Exo seems to consider something impossible for any other race to accomplish at a speed suitable for combat (and that your resident Titan more or less considers sorcery, which is of course an entirely different matter). All you do before each shot is ensure the target is in proper alignment with the bullet's trajectory, which you tend to compile as such: determine horizontal and vertical velocity using your weapon's data and current launch angle, Vx = Vo Cos θ, Vy = Vo Sin θ, where Vo equals whatever angle of fire is appropriate, the instant at which it will reach its vertical peak (Vtop) varied based on current acceleration (a) of gravity, of course... Vtop = Vy +at, solved for time: t = (Vtop-Vy)/a, then double the time needed to determine the instant at which the bullet would strike the ground in a clear environment, and finally quantify the bullet's uninterrupted travel distance: d = Vxt + 0.5at^2. Place the target in this path and the intended collision is all but guaranteed. You leave out the Magnus, Poisson, Eötvös, and Coriolis effects, since your beloved Regulator's slugs will never travel far enough for them to be particularly relevant. The whole process is entirely straightforward. A child could do it.

You tried to explain this to Munir once, and when all your friend did was stare with open mouth and brows raised higher than most would believe possible, you shook your head and returned to your quarters, Kreuz's laughter echoing in the halls behind you. Honestly, for all that his japery might attempt to cloak his exceptional combat skills and honest heart, sometimes Abd Al-Nagi seems an utter fool.

This does not change in the slightest the fact that you would sacrifice your own life for him or the Hunter in an instant if you believed it necessary. It's possible this feeling is related to your choice of targets; there is no need to inform Kreuz that the estimated path of that Vandal's primed wire rifle lead through his own person and would most likely have decapitated him while his attention was occupied aiming his own weapon.

But then, isn't the whole point that each of you fills whatever role the others require?

"Cover rush, crates off to the right. Now."

When a Defender says to move, anyone with a modicum of sense pays attention. He goes first, powering through a full magazine and absorbing a few shots with his shield as you rush, nearly bowling over Kreuz, who has already dropped into a running slide and settled in.

Munir joins the two of you just as the grenade you hadn't seen coming detonates and leaves the boulder you've just abandoned nothing more than a cloud of dust. You notice the blood when he lifts an arm and hurls his own missile into the distance, a brief delay, a thump echoing through the ground along with the dying screams of more than one Exile. Kreuz, speaking first, most likely found some way to actually see it as it happened, damn him.

"How much damage?" His scout rifle is already perched just above a smaller box, barking its first few rounds, and you wish you had the time to wonder just what is _inside_ of these boxes. They're sturdy enough to be used as cover, after all.

"Nothing important, bastard just grazed me," he lies, gritting his teeth when he begins to fire in earnest, gunning down Dregs as they flit closer to your location. "Can't we have a _safe_ trip to the evil bug caves for once?"

"Apparently not - when we broadcast - our arrival - with an exploding spacecraft." Four cracks from his scout rifle punctuate his words. Honestly, there are better things to complain about. That ship wasn't free, after all. Well, actually, it was entirely free, but replacing it certainly won't be. Even amongst Guardians, there is only so much charity that any one person can afford. In the present, you ought to be worrying about -

Ah, yes, you should be worrying precisely what's happening at this moment. The fizz of twisted energies nearly catches you off-guard, and it is entirely possible that luck and instinct are the only reason you manage to escape a nearly point-blank spread of superheated shrapnel losing only your shielding and not your torso.

The next shot goes wide when a Hunter's arc-charged knife impacts the flanking Captain's own shields, failing to penetrate but succeeding in overpowering shields that, astonishingly, do not belong to anyone in your fireteam. Before the Exile can recover or blink away, your smash your palm into its chest and watch as it burns. The rest of the enemy force must be dead or in flight, as indicated by the lack of gunfire from any direction.

Given the free time, you stand for ten or fifteen seconds, reveling in its screams of fear and pain, watching its desperate, pleading eyes. It reeks of a creature deluding itself something resembling hope.

"The world does not require your presence. Disappear." Six rhythmically delivered slugs end every sound but the crack and hiss of the flames devouring what remains of its corpse. You turn to your friends, relieved, and wonder at the inexplicably nervous demeanor of your Defender, who has begun to salve and bandage his wounded arm, which was certainly not merely _'grazed.'_ An awkward pause. You are used to these, mostly, so you just wait for him to speak his mind.

"Did you have to... you know..." Clouded though they might be through the visor of his helm, Munir's eyes appear... abnormal, somehow, though you fail to grasp the reason or details. Irritating.

"Speak clearly, please." This is all quite odd. Kreuz has joined him in watching your every movement. Are _you_ injured, somehow? What did you do wrong? A knot of anxiety secures itself within you. You _hate_ this feeling; as a Warlock, it is your duty to understand everything you possibly can and to judge it as objectively as possible. Anxiety is a feeling suited to those of other occupations.

"Did you have to just stand there and just watch it fucking _suffer_?"

"I fail to comprehend."

"He's referring to the unnecessary length of time you waited to finish it off. I'd like to hear the answer myself."

Kreuz is right, you realize; no, both of them are. One never truly knows what the enemy is capable of. Perhaps your mind is still in disarray from your rough landing.

"My apologies. It was not my intention to put anyone at risk, and I will endeavor to avoid any such mistakes in the future."

There is a short, peculiar silence.

"Akira." What? He never speaks your name in full. Almost never, you correct yourself. Absolutes must be referenced only when they actually exist. "That's not what I meant, okay? I meant... I don't know. You could have just killed it right there, but you just... left it burning alive."

"It was a creature of the Darkness. I fail to comprehend."

"We can't linger on this, at least not now," Kreuz interjects. "There could be more Fallen already coming for revenge. We need to be..." He consults privately with his Ghost. "About twelve hundred meters north. I think our time would be more valuable traveling than arguing."

"Arguing?" You still don't understand what is going on, but 'arguing' is not how you would describe the situation. "There is no anger or passion from my side of this matter. By my understanding of the term, no argument is taking place here."

"Yeah, let's get moving." Munir hefts his rifle and stands, almost managing to hide the stiffness in his right arm. You suppose it is at least preferable that the limb bearing his dominant hand is unscathed. He takes a few steps and then falters, turning back to you. "Never mind, Aki. I just..." Why does he sound so out of sorts? "You almost never smile, and I really don't feel great that you were smiling _then."_

"I was... smiling?"

"Haste, remember? We did come here for a specific purpose, and I'd like to reach it before anything else starts firing on us. So, to quote a certain individual, _'let's get moving.'_ Focus on staying alive."

"We move without our vehicles, then?"

"Too much noise. Let's not stir up any more conflict than we have to." He is right. You could traverse the distance far, far more swiftly, but the odds of your acquiring pursuers in the process are indeed troublesome.

There is very little conversation as you move, keeping to shadows when possible, skirting around potential sources of foes when you can. The fireteam may actually arrive at your destination without further incident. Everything is going rather well, apart from Munir's wound, but you are confident he will overcome it before long...

And yet this strange and baffled anxiety remains, slowly dissolving the outermost layers of your confidence. There is no reason that you would have been 'smiling,' and even if you were, destroying one of the enemy's number seems a reasonable motive. Regardless even of that, his perspective makes no sense in the first place, because you were not, in fact, smiling. Your expression had been entirely neutral, as usual.

Hadn't it?

.

* * *

 _._

 _Tsukino Akira  
_ _Human, Female  
_ _Warlock/Sunsinger_

 _Munir Abd Al-Nagi  
_ _Awoken, Male  
_ _Titan/Defender_

 _Kreuz  
_ _Exo, M-Config  
_ _Hunter/Bladedancer_


End file.
